Windows 7 Still Running in many Councils

Approximately 83% of the Windows machines in many local authorities are still running the ageing operating system, according to Freedom of Information (FoI) regardless of the support ending in January 2020.

On the 14th January 2020, the ever popular although ageing operating system will have the support withdrawn by Microsoft. By using an application migration specialist, Cloudhouse, FoI was able to find the 83% of local authorities who are still using Windows 7.

Out of the 317 councils who had responded, only 17% have said that they are still to plan their migration away from the operating system. Whereas only 1% have already completed the migration to Windows 10.

35% of the IT teams who had responded, advised that the previous migrations have taken between one to two years.

By running any applications on Windows XP and Windows 7 was highlighted by the widespread of the ransomware attacks, WannaCry in 2017. Security patches are not produced for the legacy systems, such as windows XP, soon Windows 7 be will joining the list of legacy operating systems at the start of 2020.

To conclude, it is not only local councils who are clinging on to Windows 7, some data recently released showed that Windows 7 still over 43% of the market shares compared to the 33% for Windows 10. Despite its support being withdrawn back in April 2014, Windows XP still has 5% share of the market.